'What we did not know is that Sodium Chloride is very inflammable and our entire garden burst into an inferno '

'What we did not know is that Sodium Chloride is very inflammable and our entire garden burst into an inferno '

Harry Browne describes an incident at his home where his garden caught fire.

Harry Browne

Trinity College Dublin

1966

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Harry Browne

Marriage and Family

Life Story

Donnycarney, Dublin

1960's

We had a very large garden due to the fact that the river Wad traverses it underground and no houses could be built on the spot. I was not an enthusiastic gardener and the garden was left to grow wild for a number of years. When we finally decided to clean up the garden I got a bag of Sodium Chloride, a well - known weed killer and sprayed it all over the garden, in due course the weeds dried up and stood withered in the sun. A neighbour set a small fire to burn rubbish against our common fence. What we did not know is that Sodium Chloride is very inflammable and our entire garden burst into an inferno. Sheila's cousin Ann was staying with us at the time. She had a dread of fire and when she saw this conflagration she ran into the house, closed the door and hid. Fortunately the fire burned itself out and died of its own accord. The garden after the fire was a field of stones as it had not been landscaped and the builder used it as a work site for the adjacent six houses. The boy scouts came round looking for Bob - A - Job tasks and we set them loose on the stone picking operation. This was of some benefit though I am still picking up stones from the garden some forty five years later.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)